What I Deserve

There is no corresponding element in nature for the intellectual concept of just deserts. Obviously then, no one really deserves to live or to die. And yet nearly all of the pain and suffering inflicted by people against other people is done in the guise of what someone else deserves.

The rapist believes either his victim deserves to be raped or he deserves the pleasure of raping her. The soldier believes the enemy deserves to be killed. And the jurist believes that the murderer deserves to die.

You might think that some people clearly deserve to die, such as a man like myself, who has raped and murdered children. But if I deserve to die, then so do you.

“No man is an island”. And no man exists or behaves independent of social influence.

To say that I deserve to die is to ignore the very reasons that I raped and killed in the first place. To ignore these reasons is to ultimately condone what I did, in the sense that you are allowing it to happen all over again!

Blaming me, and then killing me (a.k.a. Scapegoating) accomplishes nothing. Oh sure, it temporarily relieves the anguish that is primarily caused by fear. That is, it prettends to remove the problem, while at the same time making the real problem get worse, usually much worse.

The problem in my case was that I was rejected and punished by society for perfectly natural behavior that resulted from confusion as a child over the very mixed signals I got over my sexual feelings. The problem was exacerbated by societies own irrational anxieties over juvenile sexual interests. I acted out of my confusion with no intentional malace. And for the one hour of sexual imposition that I forced on another boy I was sent to prison for 20 years, where I was convinced by means of psychological torture that I was a “sexual psychopath”, and repeatedly raped and physically abused by other inmates. And when I finally got out of prison I found no hope of social redemption, or acceptance.

The boy I raped became a man who is to this day convinced that I got what I deserved because of what I did to him. He thinks being forced once to swallow another boy's semen has “scared him for life”. He seems to have no idea of what it's like to be the confused boy who made him swallow the semen. Even then, when I was but 16 years old, I would have traded my misery for his in a heartbeat. He at least has sympathy and compassion for his one confusing experience. All I got was a lifetime of much much worse pain and confusion, with no sympathy at all.

And so is it really any surprize that after I started to realize that I wasn't a “sexual psychopath” at all, that I had (and have) a real heart that was sorely wounded, and yet I was systematically forced to play the role of the “monster”, a role I despised... is it then any wonder that I wanted justice?

I quickly realized, as all convicts do, that if I wanted any justice at all I would have to take it for myself. And so I did; indeed, so I did.

And now I only laugh, morbidly, when I think about how society thinks I “deserve to die”. If anyone could ever deserve to die then I am certainly one. But, so was Jesus. After all, his crimes (open blaspheme) in that day and age were considered far worse then child rape or even murder. A man who killed a common child in those days would have been sued for the value of the lost child, not even criminally charged (unless he could not pay the restitution, and that would have been a completely seperate offense). But a man who blasphemed was the lowest of the low! It was an attack on what society at the time considered most sacred and innocent of all. Why else do you think they spit on him and demanded that he be crucified? In their eyes Jesus got exactly what he deserved. Only Pontius Pilate saw the insanity of it because it wasn't his image of god that was blasphamed.

So I laugh, yet I cry at the same time when I think of all the children yet to be raped and murdered because they live in a society that does not yet know how to take responsibility for what its citizens do. And I cry even more for all the children in our society who grow up to be men like me, still confused by their own behavior and even their own thoughts because the world they live in offers them no help, no understanding, and no sympathy at all. Society attacks such men with the same hatred and vehemence that it once attacked Jesus with. And, for the same fundamental reasons; blaspheme of sacred social images of the holy and innocent.

(No, I'm not suggesting child rape should be condoned. All I'm saying is that children would not get raped if we learned to take responsibility for when it happens instead of blaming the rapist and “putting him away” or “punishing” him. After I was arrested as a 16 year old boy, I wanted “help” more than anything in the world. I knew there was something ”wrong” with me, but I didn't know what. Almost all so-called “sex offenders” feel exactly the same way, at least they do the first time they get in trouble, but after that they quickly learn that there is no help, so they almost always eventually resolve to just “be what they are” and keep on hurting themselves and other people. All of which is completely unnecessary, if instead of blaming them and punishing them we simply asked them, “What's wrong?”. Then listen to what they tell us, and sincerely try to help!)

The only solution is really so simple that I frequently cry when I think about how so many people (especially children) suffer so unnecessarily. The solution to crime is love (understanding), anything else is just more crime.